


I Won't Mess You Up

by halfhuman2214



Series: OTP [2]
Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Abuse, M/M, and in college, and in highschool, and owns a store, and taking online classes, ashton is older, calum is older, luke and ash live together, luke is older than him, michael is 17, then calum moves in, then luke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-25 06:27:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3800272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfhuman2214/pseuds/halfhuman2214
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something is wrong with Michael.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Won't Mess You Up

The first time Michael flinches, Luke doesn’t know what to think of it. Ashton had come at him in a playful manner. Before Ashton could even touch him, the boy had flinched away out of reach. Luke and Ashton didn’t really know the bright-haired boy very well, having just met him the other day when Calum had invited him over to the flat with him when he had come to visit his boyfriend. Michael hadn’t really said much, he still hasn’t. Choosing only to speak when spoken to. Calum had brought him over again today, for a day of pizza and gaming. Michael had won a round of FIFA against Calum, Ashton just wanted to celebrate. Calum played it off like nothing, Michael pretended nothing happened, so both Ashton and Luke let it go.

The second time Luke realizes something is up is later that night. The pizza had just arrived, and they had sat down to eat. They grabbed the food like starved pigs, multiple slices each on their plate. Luke notices a pale hand shakily take the smallest slice left in the box, he follows it up to a hesitant Michael who was eating it like someone was going to reprimand him for it. Calum takes another slice surprising Luke, the boy had already had 4. But instead of eating it himself, he gave it to Michael and exchanged a few near silent words. Michael nodded hesitantly, eating that slice as well and taking a third.

A few weeks later Michael was wearing a long sleeved shirt in the middle of summer. He had made excuses for why, but they had fallen flat. The concerned looks Calum was giving him gave it away. Plus Luke thought he saw a flash of purple skin around his wrist. Luke stomach twisted.

Next it was Michael getting thin, unhealthily so. It was as if no one was feeding him when he was at home. He watched Michael pack away a few food items like he didn’t know when he was going to have his next meal. Calum (who had moved in at this point) would pack him up small containers of food that he could stick in his bag and take with him. It ranged from chips or crackers to the leftover chicken from the fridge that Luke had been planning on eating for lunch the next day. Ashton adopted the habit too, making sure the boy took a bottle of water with him when he left, always offering him a snack. Everybody stayed rather hush about it, but Luke had caught Ashton telling his mum over the phone “he’s hoarding food. Like I used to do. The only difference is they can afford to feed him, we sometimes didn’t have food in the house.” Luke makes sure to pick up a few things he knows are Michaels favorites the next time he goes grocery shopping.

Days later it’s a bruise on his cheek. He said he fell, everyone in the apartment knows it’s bullshit. He flinches violently when Calum raises his hand to inspect it.

Once it got cold Michaels state worsened. He had been cycling through the same 3 jeans and 5 sweaters for the last 3 or so months. The sweaters were wearing thin and all the jeans had rips in them and belt loops missing. It looked liked it hadn’t been washed in weeks, and while it didn’t have a smell, but they felt grimy to the touch. Luke pretended not to notice when Michael scootched closer to steal his body heat after the 7-mile walk from his house to the apartment. 

It all caught up with him one day. Michael had a rising fever, and from the sounds of it, a painful cough. He still made the 7-mile journey on foot to the safe haven the apartment was for him. It had taken near 2 weeks for the fever to break, even longer for the cough to go away.

There were fingertip bruises on Michael's shoulder, visible only when he shifted to the right and the hole in his sweater revealed them. Luke stared at them for hours, wondering if the younger boy was ever going to let them in.

Then it happened. November 20th, 12:00 am. Luke had been up finishing up a documentary when Calum went tearing out of the house. Ashton was quiet when he joined him out in the living area, He didn’t say much but his face had given it away. He was worried about Michael. The 17-year old hadn’t stopped by today. Luke wondered why Calum had waited till midnight to check in on the boy.

It was like puzzle pieces, Luke was constantly rearranging them to understand the whole picture. Right now, he was only a few puzzle pieces short of finishing it. SO he got some of the pictures, but he was missing a few key details.

Calum came back a little after 2 am, depositing two bags in the kitchen. Luke recognized one of them as the sorry excuse of a bag Michael brought to school, held together by duct tape at this point. Calum left the apartment again, coming back in supporting Michaels weight. He whimpered shrinking away when Ashton and Luke approached, putting weight on his bad leg and nearly falling. Calum barely manages to catch him. They clean him up. Twisted ankle, black eye, bruise upon bruise, fingerprints wrapped around his neck like someone was trying suffocating him.

Calum didn’t make Michael go to school for a few days. Not that Michael had really made a move off the couch to even use the bathroom. Calum had set off to class, Ashton to work. Leaving Luke, his computer and Michael. He sits in the chair to do his classes at first. The tv playing in the background. Michael watching Luke, not the tv. 

No more than 3 days later Michael had shifted his feet so that Luke could sit with him on the couch. He wasn’t as bad about flinching away from touch, but he hadn’t talked about that night or every night at his parents house. Calum wouldn’t talk about it either. He didn’t mention how he knew what was going down in the Clifford household. He never said he walked into that night. Even more shocking, Michael never cried.

He got bubbly and bouncy, giggling at little things. He was talking without any prompting, starting conversations all on his own. And he never shut up. But Calum and Ashton both wore smiles when Michael rambled and got off topic. The just let him go on for hours and hours sometimes.  
Other days he was near silent, staring off into space. He won't sleep, won't eat. Those days scare them. The pale boy flinches away from invisible punches. Relives nightmares.

He basically drops out of school. Calum never forced him into doing anything he didn’t want to do. And school was one of them. It was for the best really. The school was too close to his old house for them to be comfortable with him going. 

The couch isn’t comfortable, they all know that. Having slept on it once or twice they can all say they woke up with crinks in their necks. But Michael doesn’t complain. Doesn’t mention how uncomfortable he is. But the boys start planning, wanting to get Michael off the couch. They didn’t have toom to put anouther bed in the apartment. 

He ends up in Lukes bed. After a lot of persuasion from Luke, Michael takes the right side of the bed. Luke lays awake the first night falling fast and hard for the pale broken boy. Everything from his expressive face, to his kitten like yawns, to his giggle, to the way he rambles for hours. He was scared, scared that Michael wouldn’t like him back. Scared that this would be the one thing that would break the abused boy.

Michael on the other hand knew he like Luke. He’s known since before he turned 18 and his parents tried to kill him. Since before Lukes parents moved, letting him stay behind as long as he finished school. Liking Luke doesn’t scare him, not knowing if Luke will turn out like them scares him. The future scares him. 

Michael is sitting in the bathroom one day, crying. It’s a bad day, he locked himself away as soon as Calum and Ashton left. Thats how Luke found him, after unlocking the button lock. Michael flinched away from Luke as he was pulled into his lap. Luke rocking him back and forth shushing him. “Let it all out. Just let it out. I won’t mess you up.”


End file.
